Dehumanizing the vulnerable through bad inscentives

I have two more things to add to the testing debate, one short one long. 

Short first: there's no really good evidence that our current batteries of tests accurately assess student capabilities. In fact, there's good evidence that the way the tests are administered is seriously flawed. Standardized writing assessments, for example, are produced by testing companies and scored by, well, pretty much anybody. I suspect that the linked practices are the norm among testing companies. There's an assumption that test scores are valid as long as they fit a standard bell-curve, but nobody stops to think about whether or not it should be fitting the bell-curve. Indeed, these companies stand to make a greater profit when schools fail their tests than if schools pass them because then the schools buy millions of dollars of test preparation software, test books, and practice tests (which they have to pay to have scored). States rarely develop their own standardized tests, preferring to hire education companies to write and score the tests. The Georgia Assessment for the Certification of Educators, which everybody has to take in order to teach in Georgia is created and scored by Pearson Education Inc. Although standardized tests are the preferred (and only politically viable) method of measuring student and teacher performance, their efficacy is questionable. And even if these tests are accurate, I still don't think they should be the only way schools, teachers, and students are assessed.

Which brings me to my second testing objection and 5th opinion:

Opinion 5: Our educational system, as currently constituted, systematically dehumanizes and discourages the very people it ought to help most. The importance of standardized testing has increased dramatically over the past decade. All jobs public schooling are dependent on test scores: teachers all the way up to superintendents and school system CEOs (yes, schools have CEOs now) are required to continually improve test scores. Children, as a result, are reduced to vehicles for testing. They are their test scores because that's all that matters. 

Google image search always finds the most relevant images.

To flesh out my point, I'd like to use a few examples from my time student teaching, substitute teaching, and working as a paraprofessional. I'll be leaving names and school names out of the mix because they really don't matter. My experiences have taken me to a wide variety of schools from Title I urban schools to elite suburban high schools and everything in between. I've observed similar dehumanization across the board because, as I maintain, the system demands it. 

Let's call one of the students I've taught Victoria. Victoria was absent one day and missed a test. When she returned she asked her teacher if she could make up the test. Victoria, however, did not have a note from the office excusing her absence. She explained that she was absent because she had to stay home and watch her baby sister. Watching siblings is not considered an excused absence by the school and Victoria was not allowed to make up her test and now has a zero for her test grade. Ask yourself, what kind of situation is Victoria's family in that she must miss school one day to take care of her baby sister? Can't her parents afford day care or a babysitter? Couldn't one of her parents have stayed home to watch the child? How often does this happen to Victoria? Don't they value their daughter's education? I think the answers are pretty clear. They don't have another option. I'm sure you can fill in other demographic and social information about Victoria and her family - your assumptions, in this instance, are probably accurate.

Victoria probably missed assignments in other classes too. Maybe some of her teachers were kind enough to give her the work anyway. Maybe they weren't. Victoria has learned that the school doesn't care about her or her family. In her mind she obeyed her parents and helped her family, yet the school is telling her it's the wrong choice. She's probably missed (and will miss) many days of school to help out her family. Before long, her grades will drop and she will be targeted for remediation. The school does a good job of identifying students who are struggling. They know that students who fall behind tend to snow-ball and are at risk of dropping out. So they do what any school would do: enroll her in standardized test prep classes. This particular school has a seminar class three days a week for 30 minutes. Most students can choose their seminars (ex: Yoga, or guitar, or video gaming) but students targeted for remediation have no choice. They spend seminar learning testing strategies in the subject they score lowest in. If a student is particularly low-performing, he or she will be pulled out of elective courses three days a week for more test prep. When this happens, students tend to get behind in their electives. So Victoria sees her grades drop further. Classes she enjoys (she picked her electives after all) are taken away from her so she can practice word problems or reading comprehension for the graduation test. 

Is it any wonder students drop out? They know the school doesn't see them. The school only sees a test score. Victoria doesn't matter. Her little sister doesn't matter. Her socio-economic situation doesn't matter. Her test score matters. The administrators need to meet AYP or they loose their jobs. Soon, teachers will loose their pay or their jobs because of students like Victoria. Teachers already pitch a fit when they are assigned groups of low-performing students. How's it going to be when their pay is on the line too?

I'm surprised standardized test scores don't effect your credit score.
There has to be a correlation.

I had another student who I'll call Nina. Nina was a 5th year senior and clearly hated being in school. She rarely showed up and failed classes regularly. What Nina wanted, more than anything, was to take her GED exams and move on with her life but she didn't know how to enroll for the tests or that she had to withdraw from school before she could sign up to take the GED. Her guidance councilor, teachers, and administrators weren't allowed to give her information about the GED. You see, when a student formally withdraws, it counts against AYP. If Nina took the GED, it would effect the school negatively. Because this girl wanted to graduate on her own terms, she was forbidden help. Her teachers had to encourage her to stay in school for up to 2 more years (at 21 they are removed by law without penalty to the school) and faced potential administrative reprimand if they gave her GED information. Eventually she stopped showing up. A few weeks later, she withdrew from school for nonattendance (happens automatically when students max out consecutive absences). Lose, lose.

It pains me to participate in a school system which reduces its students to numbers. I do my best to treat each student as a real person. My hope is that I can somehow keep kids from being ground down by the system. Maybe I can for a while but sometimes I read things like this. Even though I have a low opinion of teachers, I think there are some fantastic people teaching. There are teachers who really make a difference and still manage to jump through all the hoops. Our policy responses keep adding hoops and more teachers become discouraged. Is the teacher in the linked article a bad teacher? Let's say she continues teaching but finds that more and more students are failing her courses and/or failing state exams. Then is she a bad teacher? If she quits because of her change of heart, is she someone who "wasn't committed to education"?

My next post will be about teachers (again). Specifically, who are the good ones and who are the bad ones? How can we tell?